The visionaries behind this year’s award-winning spaces at Tatler Homes Design Awards 2025

To Dennis Cheok, founder of Upstrs_, design is as much about emotion as it is about precision. The studio’s winning project, Kintsugi, recipient of the Best Bespoke Concept award, is a poetic expression in deep, moody tones—designed as a vessel for memory, craftsmanship, and reflection. “It was unthinkable to us that a project so extreme and yet so subdued could fare well in the awards arena,” he reflects.

In a profession driven by millimetres, Cheok advocates lifting one’s gaze to the bigger picture, framing interior design as a deeply cultural act. Kintsugi marks a new chapter for the studio: thoughtful, unafraid, and fiercely personal. “Cultural sustainability”, as he calls it, is the aspiration—to create not just beautiful spaces, but enduring ones that celebrate community, craft, and the quiet power of intention.

Helmed by co-founders Michael Ong and Jeremy Tay, Prestige Global Designs has built its reputation on sophisticated, bespoke interiors crafted with polish and precision. Ong, a London-trained interior designer, blends classical, modern, and resort-inspired elements with a luxurious touch, while Tay, who holds a degree in biotechnology, brings analytical discipline and visual sensitivity to the studio’s approach. “A great design is as much science as it is art,” says Ong. “It’s about a perfect balance,” adds Tay.

Their studio won the Readers’ Choice: Best Luxury Concept award for Avenue South Residences, a 56th-floor penthouse designed to frame the sweeping skyline views. A standout feature is the home’s ombré ceiling, which shifts in colour like the sky itself—a poetic gesture that reveals their shared pursuit of originality and craft. In a world filled with instant references, the designers’ work reminds us that true luxury lies in restraint, detail, and deliberate expression.

Goy Architects made history this year as the first studio to win in both a jury and a special award category at the Tatler Homes Design Awards 2025 – Singapore. The firm clinched Best Modern Asian Concept for a poetic apartment at MeyerHouse inspired by moon phases and an ancient Chinese poem, and the Sustainability Champion: Best Conservation award—created in partnership with V-ZUG—for the sensitive restoration of a colonial mansion at 10 Pender Road. That project, a blend of cutting-edge solutions and time-honoured craft, reflects founder Goy Zhenru’s commitment to regional materials and vernacular wisdom.

In her second trimester at the time of the gala, Goy took the stage beaming with joy. Her design philosophy—rooted in cultural sensitivity and vernacular techniques—extends across residential and public works alike, always with an eye on contextual relevance and modern interpretation.

It’s difficult to categorise Farm—and that’s precisely the point. Part architectural studio, part community arts organisation and part online gift retailer, the multi-hyphenate practice is bound by one unifying thread, however:a belief in good design.

Farm won the Readers’ Choice: Best Showroom at Tatler Homes Design Awards 2025 for Hafary House, the very backdrop for this year’s winner portrait series. “We wanted to reflect the raw energy of Jalan Besar’s industrial roots while creating a sophisticated showcase for modern design,” says director Selwyn Low, who leads the firm alongside Peter Sim, Torrance Goh and Tiah Nan Chyuan, the latter of whom accepted the trophy on his behalf at the gala.

Inspired by Bologna’s Cersaie tile fair, the project transforms 11 conserved shophouses into immersive, ever-evolving galleries. Clever material displays, digital integration and spatial flow encourage return visits—making it a standout among both trade professionals and design lovers alike.

Known for its show units, in high demand both in Singapore and abroad, Superfat Designs has carved a niche in creating market-ready interiors that balance aspirational design with commercial appeal. Founded in 2011 by principal designer Lin Weizhang, the studio has consciously remained small and agile. “It’s about quality over quantity,” says Lin, who had just flown in from India in time for the photoshoot at Hafary House. That ethos, he adds, guides not only the firm’s creative direction, but also its approach to work and life.

At the Tatler Homes Design Awards 2025 gala night, with Lin and partner Mae Chu completing a project overseas, Superfat team members Tan Wee Kim and Jack Ong accepted the Readers’ Choice: Best Show Unit award for their work at 3 Orchard By-The-Park. The project’s blend of colour, texture and artworks frames spectacular views—earning admiration from both the judges and readers alike.

Kay Ngee Tan Architects was one of this year’s Sustainability Champion: Best Conservation winners, a special award curated by Tatler Homes Singapore in collaboration with V-ZUG. The recognition was for the firm’s thoughtful restoration of Bukit Timah Railway Station, a project that reflects founder Tan Kay Ngee’s belief in preservation as a form of stewardship of collective memory.

On stage, Tan was joined by senior associate architect Phuah Hong Thye—who was instrumental to the project and is pictured here with Tan—and Stefaan Lambreghts of Grant Associates, who handled the landscaping, in a gesture that reinforces his view that architecture is always a collective endeavour.

A multidisciplinary creative force, Tan draws inspiration from art, film, photography and literature. This cross-disciplinary curiosity infuses his architectural approach with a sense of depth and originality. Established in London in 1990, the firm now operates studios in the city, Singapore and Istanbul, with a portfolio that bridges cultural resonance and modern relevance.

“Don’t be afraid to put the right thing in the wrong place” is a guiding motto for Penang-born architect Rene Tan, who co-founded RT+Q Architects with TK Quek in 2003. This principle has led to a portfolio of exquisitely crafted houses with sometimes highly functional yet unorthodox architectural solutions—like the monsoon window, a floor aeration opening at the upper-storey study of Rumah Bayu.

The project, which won Best Architectural Concept, was especially meaningful to Tan: the house was designed for his childhood friend—his “first friend in Singapore”, as he fondly shared. The night of the awards, 1 July, was a double celebration for the architect, who also marked his 29th wedding anniversary with his wife, Chuah Woei Woei, whom he lovingly thanked from the stage as being a vital force behind his career.

Gwen Tan first came to prominence as one of the co-founders of architectural firm Formwerkz Architects; now, she brings decades of experience to her own interior design practice, Studio If. Founded in 2015, the studio channels Tan’s architectural acumen into richly detailed interiors shaped by curiosity and craft. Her signature question—”What if?”—drives a design process that reimagines luxury as a highly personal expressionof lifestyle.

That approach is on full display at Oasis in the Sky, winner of the Best Penthouse award. The property merges two penthouse units into a singular, sweeping residence for the overseas high-net-worth individual market, adding strategic value for the developer client by tailoring luxury living to this specific segment. Tan’s design ethos embraces living with passion, where the things that matter most are expressed and celebrated in thoughtful, indulgent ways.

PI Architects takes its name from the initials of founding partners Paul Yeo and Ivan Soh—though the name’s allusion to the mathematical symbol π isn’t lost on them, either. “We love it that digits of pi do not repeat in a pattern,” shared Yeo during the shoot at Hafary House.

“It reflects our approach: no replicated projects, each one has a bespoke approach,” added Soh. And that’s what keeps the studio ticking— a continual pursuit of the next distinct, meticulously crafted commission.Winner of Best Use of Colour, the studio’s Miro Apartment draws inspiration from Joan Miró’s exuberant art and the irreverent spirit of the 1980s.

The result is a bold yet sophisticated bachelor pad where colour is articulated not just through materials, but also with architectural elements and lighting. This project demonstrates how PI Architects elevates colour from surface treatment to spatial language.

With over two decades of experience in the industry, Joey Khu has quietly built a reputation for elegant restraint and immaculate detailing. Since founding his namesake studio in 2014, he has specialised in tailoring refined, contemporary interiors for various residential and commercial clients—spaces that balance masculine strength with material warmth. Khu’s design language is modern yet timeless, often grounded in wood, stone and steel, and always guided by his clients’ lifestyles.

His studio was awarded Best Modern Minimalist Concept for a tranquil apartment in Botanic Gardens Mansion, where timber-lined floors and ceilings frame a soothing, cohesive palette. While the home itself is serene, the award reflects the studio’s enduring philosophy: that good design lies in the clarity of intention and precision of execution. Khu continues to shape spaces that are both understated and arresting—living proof that restraint, when mastered, can indeed leave a lasting impression.

​​Founded based on a passion for design as a form of artistic storytelling, K2SD Group is a bespoke luxury design practice based in Singapore, with projects spanning Malaysia, Thailand and Italy. Helmed by Kelly Kawahara Cheah, the studio works across architecture, interior design and styling, creating regionally sensitive, finely crafted spaces for a multinational clientele. From private residences to clubs as well as commercial properties, the firm’s creations blend thoughtful design with cultural fluency.

After years of practising abroad, Cheah returned to Singapore and turned her attention to her own 1970s terrace house in Katong. The result, A Sensory Home, won the Best Transformation award—a richly layered residence that explores materiality, emotion and memory. As any designer knows, designing for oneself is no easy feat, but Cheah’s ability to translate personal vision into spatial experience speaks volumes about her clarity of intent and commitment to refinement.

Art historian and collector Krystina Lyon and Asia Pacific chairman of Design Bridge and Partners Mark Budden’s first home was a makeshift space in an industrial building turned self-converted loft in London. Their latest home is an apartment in Singapore’s Tanglin area where art—particularly works by Southeast Asian female artists—takes centre stage.

Self-designed by the couple, the apartment interweaves these artworks with their long-held collection of mid-century modern furniture from their London days. Strategically placed among heirlooms and bookshelves assembled by Budden himself, the art pieces, collectively called the Nassim Regency Collection, are given space to tell their story.

“Timely,” Budden said of the accolade at the gala, as the couple revealed that they were planning to move back to London after more than two decades in Singapore. “It’s a sweet parting gift of sorts,” he added during the shoot at Hafary House, “to have our home here recognised by the awards and immortalised on these pages.”

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